http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.02779
We establish the importance of modified Einstein’s gravity (MG) in white dwarfs (WDs) for the first time in the literature. We show that MG leads to significantly sub- and super-Chandrasekhar limiting mass WDs, depending on a single model parameter. However, conventional WDs on approaching Chandrasekhar’s limit are expected to trigger type Ia supernovae (SNeIa), a key to unravel the evolutionary history of the universe. Nevertheless, observations of several peculiar, under- and over-luminous SNeIa argue for the limiting mass widely different from Chandrasekhar’s limit. Explosions of MG induced sub- and super-Chandrasekhar limiting mass WDs explain under- and over-luminous SNeIa respectively, thus unifying these two apparently disjoint sub-classes. Our discovery questions both the global validity of Einstein’s gravity and the uniqueness of Chandrasekhar’s limit.
U. Das and B. Mukhopadhyay
Wed, 10 Jun 15
50/53
Comments: 6 pages including 1 figure and 2 tables; received Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation 2015 Awards for Essays on Gravitation. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1411.1515